Page:The Mystery of the Sea.djvu/476

462 Again it is to be noted that even in his first allusion to the system in 1605, he says, "to write Omnia per Omnia, which is undoubtedly possible, with a proportion Quintuple at most, of the writing infoulding, to the writing infoulded."

"Quintuple at most!" But in the instances of his system which he gives eighteen years later, when probably his time for secret writing as a matter of business had ceased, and when from the lofty altitude of the Woolsack he could behold unmoved any who had concealments to make—provided of course that they were not connected with bribes—there is only one method given, that of five infolding letters for each one infolded. In the later and fuller period he speaks also of the one necessary condition "that the infoulding writing shall contain at least five times as many letters as the writing infoulded"—

Even in the example which he gives "Do not go till I come," there is a superfluous letter, the final "e;" as though he wished to mislead the reader by inference as well as by direct statement.

Is it possible that he stopped short in his completion of this marvellous cipher? Can we believe that he who openly spoke from the first of symbols "quintuple at most," was content to use so large a number of infolding letters when he could possibly do with less? Why, the last condition of excellence in a cipher which he himself laid down, namely, that it should "bee without suspicion," would be endangered by a larger number than was actually necessary. It is by repetition of symbols that the discovery of secret writing is made; and in a cipher where, manifestly, the eye or the ear or the touch or the taste must be guided by such, and so marked and prolonged, symbols, the chances of discovery are enormously increased. Doubtless, then, he did not rest in his investigation and invention until he had brought his cipher to its least dimensions; and it was for